


Interpretation of a Man

by amproof



Category: The Devil's Whore
Genre: Gen, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 14:22:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1120897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amproof/pseuds/amproof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sexby reflects on his life and Angelica during his year in Ireland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interpretation of a Man

**Author's Note:**

> If you are looking for historical accuracy, look no further b/c it ain't here. Also, very sorry for the hideous title. Um. Please read anyway. :)

Title: Interpretation of a Man  
Author: [](http://amproof.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://amproof.livejournal.com/)**amproof**  
Fandom: The Devil's Whore  
Words: 1273  
Rating: Gen. (Mild harsh language) Angst.  
Disclaimer: The Devil's Whore is property of Channel 4 and its creators, of which I am not one.  
Notes: If you are looking for historical accuracy, look no further b/c it ain't here. Also, very sorry for the hideous title. Um. Please read anyway. :)  
Spoilers: Episode 3.  
Summary: Sexby reflects on his life and Angelica during his year in Ireland.

He wasn't born with a gun in his hand. Edward Sexby went to school. He was one of the few boys in his village who did, but every morning he'd troop up the hill to the little school house where a master would shout at him and every night he'd troop down the hill to the manor house where his father would shout at him, and in between there were squiggly lines that meant something to someone, a hell of a lot of someones, but not a damned thing to him. He could look at a squiggle and tell you that it was a letter, and that it stood for something, a sound. But that was where it stopped. He could not match the sound to the letter. The other boys laughed and he was beaten, so in the end, he got smart. He shut the hell up and left school the second his old man died. He left home, too, though his mother was crying. She wasn't crying for him—hadn't ever before while she'd watched the old man toss him around like a rag doll, so why should she now? Probably glad to see the back of him.

He was twelve and tall for his age. He lied about it and joined the army. He killed on his first day. The others told him he would always remember his first kill, but he doesn't. Six weeks in, he learned about mercenaries. He stole the gun they'd given him and took off for more lucrative grounds. Well, suffice to say it never bothered him much, killing people.

He had learned one thing from his father. If he drew a line and then crossed it with another line, that meant 'Sexby'. It confused the hell out of him when he saw this line crossed by another line in the middle of grouped squiggles that made what he was told were words, and for a while he thought that if he said 'Sexby' in place of these words, the meaning would be understood. That theory was dissuaded the moment he was stupid enough to try it out.

Who needed words when there was war? Battles to be fought. Blood, he understood. There was no vast interpretation of a wound. Men bled and died, often at his hand, and he, at theirs.

Now, there was war again (always, always again), and this one spurred on by words. He sat in the camps, listening to the men around the fire talking about Lilburne's pamphlets. He poked the fire, knowing he would be left alone because they were all scared of him. Had a bit of the devil in him, they said when they thought he couldn't hear, this man killed and revived too many times to count. He sat unmolested and listened until he knew every word of Lilburne's pamphlet, knew why Oliver had him fighting, but, the more he heard, the less he knew of why he was still there. Perhaps this was the use the school master had tried to beat into him, that words could motivate men to do things. Already they had lost a few men to the other side. They would be found and shot, but still, he considered… He had switched sides before, and, to be honest, he didn't see the point in killing women and children, even if they were Irish.

He kept the blue ribbon in his satchel. It was almost twenty years old. He washed it from time to time, as often as he washed himself, taking it out with great tenderness and wrapping it around his arm as he had seen a fugitive Jew do when he was fighting in Europe. Sexby had watched from an unseen place as the man emerged from a hole in the ground. He had calculated the reward for bringing in a Jew, but dismissed it because of the hassle involved. Besides, if others wanted to torture, that was their business. His was to kill. There was a prayer attached to this twining, but Sexby had no god. He traced the ribbon as it looped around his upper arm and down to his wrist, around his fingers. He submerged himself, clutching the end in his clenched fist so the stream would not tear it away. The water soaked it and glued it to him so that from this moment to the moment he peeled it from his skin and put it away, he was closer to her through this strip of fabric that had once been tied to her skin, than anything else had made him, even the ring that he wore on his proper finger. She wore hers on her thumb. It didn't matter. He was her servant, so long as she wanted him. He was keeping a promise to her husband, nothing more.

But at night, when the fire had gone out and he was on his back in his tent, he read the letters that she did not send to him because he had told her not to (this was the reason he gave himself, and not because she would not have bothered anyway). He composed them in his mind, and read them back to himself. She called him "My dearest Edward". In return, he addressed her as "Darling Angelica". She told him about the land and the weather and a thousand trivial things, anything he could think of. He framed his own adventures as hers, imagining how she would have carried on in his place. She was never captured, or beaten, or shot. He composed replies to these fictitious letters, too. He never dared, even in his imagination, to utter the one phrase most on his mind.

Wait for me.

Your loving Edward, he would sign off.

Your devoted Angelica, from her.

The men brought Irish women to the camps and lay with them. Sexby heard the caterwauling through the night. When his captain paused at Sexby's tent and offered him a woman, he pretended to be asleep. He reached into his satchel and stroked the ribbon. He counted the days to his return by the number of Irish dead. There were so many Irish. Every day more, it seemed.

He was tired of the battle, not just this one, but all battles. When he slept, it was with a weariness he had not known before. It was six months before he understood that the joy he had once gained from combat had been replaced by hope, a hope contained in the image and thought of a woman out of reach, and this had made his heart weary. In all his life he had not cried. He knew only hate and harbored a cold heart against those who hurt him and those he would hurt. But now, he was lost. She did not love him, would never love him. There was no reason for him to go back. But at times, she looked at him, and he thought… His dreams, getting in the way again. His wages, sent to her religiously, fulfilled his promise to her husband. But part of him, a part he tried to deny even as he wiped his tears with the fraying ends of the blue ribbon, knew that he would return to her, as he had, over months of created conversation, decided that this was her request, her idea.

Return to me.

He would. Even if he had to cut off his hand to do it. He would return to her, his darling, devoted Angelica. He would be her true and loving Edward, as he had never been anyone's before.

The End


End file.
